Tightrope Walker by Dorothy Gilman Page B

to live in Carleton, do you recall?”
    “Fifteen, maybe eighteen years. She warn’t no summer resident,” he said with the contempt of a native in his voice for those who came only during the golden months. With a curious glance he added, “You one of these people tracing roots I hear about?”
    “Something like that,” Joe said easily. “How much would half a dozen of these all-day suckers cost? And perhaps you could also direct us to the town cemetery?”
    “Fifty cents plus tax, and the cemetery’s just across the road behind the Methodist church,” he said, leaving me awed by Joe’s clear thinking. No need to ask how long ago she’d died; the cemetery would tell us.
    And so at dusk on a warm May evening we wandered through the Carleton cemetery in search of Hannah’s grave. It was a good cemetery, well-kept, with carefully weeded mounds punctuated by modest upright granite slabs, dozens of them in neat rows reaching back centuries. The sun was low and turned the grass a brilliant emerald green as it slanted through the huge old trees. Woven into the hushed silence were a few bird calls and the steady snip-snip of grass shears wielded by a boy at the far end of the cemetery. We strolled over toask him if he could tell us where the Meerloo plot was, and after a moment’s thought he pointed.
    And there it was, except there were two stones, very simple ones, side by side. The stone on the left read:
    JASON M. MEERLOO
    b. January 23, 1920—killed in France
    December, 1945
    “Good grief,” I said, “he was only twenty-five, do you suppose he was husband or brother?”
    Joe pointed wordlessly to the bottom words, nearly covered by the ivy trailing over the stone. They read, BELOVED HUSBAND OF HANNAH .
    “Husband,” I said automatically. The sun had withdrawn now and it was nearly dark among the trees. As I knelt beside the companion gravestone I switched on my flashlight.
    “ HANNAH G. MEERLOO ,” I read softly. “Born May 27, 1925, died July 25, 1965 …”
So long ago
, I thought, startled, and then I subtracted one date from another and said, “Joe, she was only forty.”
    Joe was doing sums in his head, too. “It also means,” he said, “that when she was widowed in 1945 she was twenty-one years old. Younger than you are now, Amelia.”
    But I was staring at the inscription below the dates and the name. Puzzled, I leaned closer with my flashlight and pushed aside a tendril of ivy to make certain I was reading the inscription correctly, for below the date of her death were the words … 
and so she went beyond the horizon into the country of the dawn …
    Strange words … strange and poetic and somehow familiar to me. “That’s surely a quotation,” I told Joe,concentrating the beam of light on the words and frowning over them. “Is it familiar to you?”
    He shook his head. “I like it, though. I think it means—” He hesitated and then he said very quietly, “I think it means there was someone left behind who loved her.”
    It was at that moment, hearing him say that, and in that kind of voice, that I believe I fell in love with Joe.
And so she went beyond the horizon into the country of the dawn
 … Puzzling. Puzzling and somehow very personal and loving, exactly as Joe pointed out.
    “Come on,” Joe said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “It’s dark and getting cold and it’s nearly eight o’clock. I think it’s time we find a place to park the van, have some cocoa and turn in. I’m beat, myself.”
    I turned and looked up at him and I said urgently, “But there’ll be records, won’t there, Joe? Newspapers keep records, don’t they? And a death certificate somewhere?”
    “Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow, Amelia.” And he helped me to my feet and firmly led me away from the grave.
    We found a deserted wood road, drank our cocoa and curled up in our sleeping bags inside the van, Joe on one side, and I on the other. I fell asleep at once, tired from two days of